Saw the Black Crowes last night at Taste of Addison. Taste of Addison is a yearly event where different restaurants have booths, much like an art fair or carnival, and have small samples of their wares. You pay ten bucks for admission, and then you walk around and pay more money to eat food.
I definitely wanted to see the Black Crowes, so I went. There were bands all day, but we only showed up at the outdoor stage area around 9:00 pm. Vermont rockers Grace Potter and the Nocturnals were playing. I thought they were great.
Now I must warn my gentle reader that I have a long-standing struggle with misanthropy. Sorry, but most normal people suck so hard. I wish that weren’t so! My loathing of humanity started kicking in a high gear, when my wife and I were surrounded in a sea of backwards-baseball cap-wearing-douchbags. I realize that Taste of Addison is the equivalent of a preppie county fair, but they shouldn’t let anyone in who wears their baseball cap backwards, and Tommy Hilfiger designed shorts, to see The Black Crowes. False beards, beards, not little goatees should be provided at the door.
So douchey and his friend douche-ier were in front of us, drinking. They started to hit on the dancing hippy girls, who were having none of them. This is all fine and good, they shut their Republican mouths when big burly boyfriends showed up to dance with them. Then the one on my left started bad-mouthing the opening band. They were rocking their hearts out and this guy wasn’t sure if he should like them. Society hasn’t give him permission yet.
The Black Crowes hit the stage and they rocked. The crowd of preps weren’t prepared for extended jam sessions and were really just there to hear hits off of Shake Your Money Maker. The PA system was fairly loud, but not enough to drown out ten thousand twangy sorority girls jibber jabbering into their cell phones. Then they had conversations with their backwards baseball caps and loafer boyfriends. As if fucking anything was as important as what the Crowes had to say. What anyone under the age of twenty five was doing there is beyond me.
I would definitely go see the Black Crowes again, but this time, I would like to be with people who really want to be there, and not at some glorified county fair.
So I have been a yoga practitioner for about two months now. This isn’t very long, but I can tell that I’m going to be doing this for awhile. I haven’t missed a class. I also have not lifted a single weight, if you don’t count the weight of my own body, in this time.
Not lifting weights has been strange. This is the longest period I’ve gone without weight training. It’s fun to be strong, but part of my decision to go into yoga was a realization that I’m getting older, and I’m not going to be as strong as I was when I was 30. I’ve also let go, completely with out regrets, any notion that I’m going to ever look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I reject the absurd culture that wants me to look like that.
It’s pretty obvious that culture has cooked up some really odd ideas about what our bodies should look like. The most pernicious messages are given to women, but men get it too. Your average check-out lane in a grocery store will have various last-minute purchases including magazines. Without going into any kind of Naomi Klein The Beauty Myth rant, it is almost a self-evident truth that women are pressured to look a certain way. Using the magazines at supermarket check-out lanes, which we can agree is the most scientific barometer of human cultural mores, one will see that men are also pressured to have bodies that are only obtainable through chemical enhancement. The average bodybuilder on supermarket check-out lanes is more muscular than a human being can naturally be.
I’m finding that yoga is kind of sneered at. Which suits me fine, I generally root for the underdog in most situations. A couple of years ago, Penn and Teller’s show, Bullshit, which despite being an unabashed new ager, I usually like did an exposé on yoga, which their typical reductionist flair, dismissed simply as stretching. With all due respect, this is like calling surfing, “standing on a board in water.” It’s a little bit trickier and deeper than that.
This goes on my ongoing list of A Billion Things That Would Be Nice, But I Don’t Really Need.
The Japanese have made this device which allows one to freeze ice into perfect crystal balls. The purpose of this is to put into drinks, and since they have a reduced surface area, they melt slower, which will make your drink less watery.
Ok, my British friends, we here in America drink our scotch and whiskey with ice. Get over it. I personally like my scotch with some Vernors in it. And I’m gonna load it up with ice, something ya’ll consider to be a blasphemy.
You see, we here in America have things called refrigerators , which are incredible inventions that produce ice year round. Science marches on.
I’m not trying to sound cool or Oooh, look how Working Class and grounded I am but you know what I love? I love Jim Beam. It’s really good! I actually prefer my cheap-ass Jim Beam Bourbon, versus the more expensive Scotches. But I will admit that I’m something of a scotch white belt.
There is core part of me that is still a twelve year old boy, which means I’m jazzed to go see the new Speed Racer and Iron Man movies and I love to listen to Slayer and Metallica.
So imagine my delight when I discovered, are you ready for this?, Viking Martial Arts! Check out Berzerker Viking Fighting system! If this was available when I was in junior high school, this would most assuredly be my main past time, aside from Dungeons and Dragons and chronic masturbation, of course.
In days of yore, in simpler times,- when it was socially acceptable to put on animal skins, get in a boat and get blind drunk and then rob your neighbors and abduct their women,- there used to be Viking bezerkers. Berserkers fought by, well, going berzerk. They were greatly feared warriors, who fought with such a blood lust, that they were considered invincible.
Well, now my friend, you need not suffer having sand kicked in your face by the bullies at the beach. Learn to bash their fucking brains in with a war hammer! I swear, this is the ultimate martial art… This is what you’ll learn:
How fun does that sound? I’m not sure if they train in costumes, but that would be an added plus in my book.
The gentleman who runs the system is a certain Grandmaster Sven S. Svensson. He sounds like…something of a jerk in this interview on their site. Check out this Internet Tough Guy talk:
LS: Yes, OK. Speaking of beating people up – you say you can defeat anyone with BERZERKER™ Viking Fighting. Do you really think you can beat any of the professional fighters in the UFC, Pride and K1?
SS: Yes – by Thor! Those guys are just pretty boys in spandex hot pants… They don’t know anything about real combat!! In the old days, the berzerkers used to rape guys like that just for fun… I’m joking, but what I really mean is – when was the last time you were attacked by someone dressed in hot pants, wearing leather gloves? And I’m not talking about your wife here! Hahaha… (Emphasis mine.)
LS: Well, it hasn’t happened yet. So how would you fight a UFC fighter then?
SS: On the street, I’d smash his head in with my warhammer. Or maybe just have my friends surround him and then windmill and stomp him to death.
In a ring, I would cheat. You know – eye gouge, fish hook, hit the throat, bite the groin, stuff like that. A lot of people say that biting doesn’t work in combat. Well, ask them again after I’ve bitten their nuts off! The Vikings used biting a lot – and trust me, it works! (Again, emphasis mine.)
By Thor! Methinks UFC stars like Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture would rip his Viking arms off and beat him to death with them. Those guys are hardly “pretty boys”, and have taken so many hits to the head and rolled around on the mat so long that there ears look like melted wax.
And what’s this “By Thor” business? Grandmaster Svensson says this a lot, especially in ALL CAPS to anyone who questions this martial art on his forum. Shouldn’t it be by Tyr ? Tyr is the god of single combat. Thor protects people, and is kind of a “good guy.” Tyr is even more aggressive than Thor is. I’m just trying to help him sound like a meaner Viking.
I can’t get enough of Grandmaster Svennson insulting his forum guests! Here’s Sven’s response to the oft-asked question, “Is Grandmaster Sven the best fighter in the world?”
BY THOR!!! IF YOU KNOW ANSWER THEN WHY ASK QUESTION?!!!! TOTAL PATHETIC FOOLS LIKE YOU PISS ME OFF BEYOND NO END!!!!
IF I NOT BEST FIGHTER IN WORLD THEN WHO IS?!!! STEVEN SEGAL?!! OR MAYBE CHUCK NORIS?!! OR PERHAPS SOME PATHETIC MMA “FIGHTER” IN PINK UFC TUTU MAYBE?!!! OR WHO?!!!
I HAVE BEATEN AND HUMILIATE AND SENT TO HOSPITAL EMERGENCY WARD WITH BRAIN DAMAGE EVERY PATHETIC AND WEAK AND SCRAWNY LOSER WHO CHALLENGE AND FOUGHT ME!!! NO ONE HAVE EVER BEATEN ME EVER!!! NO ONE!!!!! EXCEPT MY FATHER BERZERKER SUPREME GRANDMASTER AND BREAKER OF BONES THOR SVENSSON!!!!
BY THOR MY FIGHT RECORD IS 499 WINS AND ONE DRAW AND ONLY TWO LOSSES!!!!
ONE LOSS WAS AGAINST FATHER THOR AND ONE LOSS WAS DISQUALIFICATION BECAUSE I DIDN’T NOT UNDERSTAND PATHETIC RUSSIA CAGE FIGHT RULES PROPERLY ENOUGH!! NO THROAT STRIKE OR BITING TO GROIN ALLOWED!!! RIDICULOUS!!! SO I LOST FIGHT BECAUSE OF PATHETIC RULE AND NOT BECAUSE BAD FIGHTING!!!! BUT RUSSIAN OPPONENT LOST HIS NUT AND GOT MUCH MUTILATED SCROTUM SO IN STREETFIGHT I WOULD BE WINNER FOR SURE!!!!!
IF YOU DONT BELIEVE I AM BEST FIGHTER IN WORLD THEN COME TO SWEDEN AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!!! BY THOR I WILL SMASH YOUR UGLY FACE IN WITH MY WARHAMMER!!!! OR MAYBE JUST KILL YOU WITH A SPOON JUST FOR EXTRA HUMILATION!!!!
It’s good to be confident. You know, Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA keeps records of fights, even in Russia. Just saying…
Grandmaster Svennson also has some fighting words to say about another Grandmaster. George Salusbury was abducted by a UFO. He is now a master, I’m sorry, GRANDMASTER of Grand Celestial Do: The Fighting Art of the Cosmos. I’m with Svennson on this one. I want my martial art to be devised for human bodies and not aliens.
Our culture is celebrity obsessed. So it is no surprise that my family claims relations with people we probably have no connection to. The newest one that my mom claims is country and western superstar, Carrie Underwood. I’m told that she is a member of the “Oklahoma contingent” of our family. I don’t know anybody named Underwood that is related to me, but I guess it is possible.
I always like to refer to Carrie Underwood as “my hot cousin.”
For years and years, I’ve always heard that our family was related to Quanah Parker, Commanche chief, and founder of the Native American Church. I WANT this one to be true. But to say we are directly related to Quanah is dubious. If it has some validity, then I believe we would be related by blood to Cynthia Ann Parker, the captured farm girl, who was his white mother.After her rescue by the whites, she wanted to go back so bad, she starved herself to death. When confronted with these facts, my mom just always says, “Georgia-ann says pretty much everybody in Texas is related Quanah Parker.” Georgia-ann, or Georgeanne as we pronounce it is an expert on everything as far as my mother is concerned.
Like everybody else, I do have some bona fide Injun blood in me. My grandmother’s grandmother was Commanche. I asked my grandmother about this, when she was alive, and she got real defensive and said, “We didn’t even know her name!” She was embarrassed about the whole idea, but she looked the most Indian of all of us. The story goes, that her long hair caught fire while drawing a fire for a bath. Even this could be a myth that my family has constructed.
Since I have demonstrably proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m a direct descendent of Quanah Parker, I would like to comment on the Native American Church, which I should by right be the spiritual heir apparent of. I support the NAC, but I think it should substitute the peyote sacrament with the more common San Pedro cactus, just until the current environmental crisis is over. Both plants contain mescaline, but the once ubiquitous peyote is becoming scarce. It is essential that this native plant, which grows quite slowly, twelve years until maturity, be preserved. Maybe after the shortage is over, and the ground is littered with this cactus, can it once again be used as a sacrament.
Boy howdy. I’m all for home-made, independently made movies, but just make sure they’re good. Here is a trailer for something called The Abbey of Thelema, which is a biographical account of Aleister Crowley and his time in Italy.
I don’t like the guy they have playing Crowley. Granted, I haven’t seen the film, or should I say video , this looks like cheap porn to me, but the lead actor isn’t close to what I imagine Crowley to be like. I’m also annoyed by the dialect, which is an American desperately trying to ape an English accent. Crowley spoke with a Scottish accent, which was something he played up, much like Madonna changing her accents. I’ve often thought of who I would cast as Crowley in a feature film, I would have cast Marlon Brando for his magnetism. These days, I’m not sure who I would cast, I think JIm Broadbent could do it, and was delighted to hear that he has been cast as Professor Slughorn in the Harry Potter movies. Slughorn reminds me of Crowley.
Also, the trailer inexplicably has porn star Ron Jeremy playing what would be I guess an Anglican priest trying to convert Crowley. Let’s be so ironic. We get Ron Jeremy to be in our film, and let’s…let’s…I know, have him be a PRIEST! I’ve had enough of this kind of winking at the audience.
For those of you who don’t know, Crowley tried to set up a utopian commune in Italy based on his own occult philosophy, which he called Thelema. Mussolini would later kick him out. As interesting as this period of his life is, I would have made a movie about Boleskine House, on the shore of Loch Ness.
Crowley unleashed all kinds of crazy at Boleskine House. If I ever make good on my threat to retire in my ancestral homeland of Scotland, Boleskine will be my first destination. At that house, Crowley started a very complex magickal operation based on the works of Abra-Melin the Mage. To make a long story short, he was called away to France, despite his objections, by S.L. MacGregors, head of the Golden Dawn. The channel to the other world was left open. People who have resided in the house have reported…odd things there.
Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of Lysergic acid diethylamide, has died at the age of 102. Certainly one of the most important people of the Twentieth Century. He will be missed.
I guess by now everyone knows that Guillermo del Toro is definitely slated to be the director of The Hobbit, and it’s, er… sequel. Not only that, but Sir Ian McKellen, I wish I could sound like him and Andy Serkis are onboard as well.
I guess the hunt begins to find a suitable Bilbo Baggins. Might I submit to any New Line Cinema execs reading, that this humble author of this very blog is the SPITTING IMAGE of the lovable hobbit. I am cute and spry, and look fucking GREAT in a curly haired wig. Just putting that out there…
Guillermo del Toro was my numero uno choice for the Hobbit, ever since Peter Jackson had troubles with New Line. Now we have the best of both worlds, Jackson’s producing, and del Toro is directing.
The Hobbit is my favorite of Tolkein’s books. It is somehow more fairy tale than the rest of the series, and Guillermo del Toro has a lifetime of reading fairy tales under his belt. Whenever I’m in between books, and have nothing else to read, I always grab my copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. My brainy readers will point out that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are really the founders of cultural anthropology. I also like to read Katharine Mary Briggs who is kind of an English version of the Brothers Grimm.
I’ve discovered something really cool. You might have wondered what the comic strip, Garfield would be like if Garfield wasn’t in it. Well, someone has de-Garfielded the long-running strip. What is left is a strange and very bizarre dialogue of Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle, talking to himself. It’s lonely, incredibly painful descent into madness.
Not as cool as my favorite comic strip, re-imagining, the Nietzsche Family Circus, which juxtaposes random Nietzsche quotations with that wholesome strip. Family Circus has also been re-edited with the works of H.P. Lovecraft which I thought was a laugh riot.
Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers.
Our culture is celebrity obsessed. So it is no surprise that my family claims relations with people we probably have no connection to. The newest one that my mom claims is country and western superstar, Carrie Underwood. I’m told that she is a member of the “Oklahoma contingent” of our family. I don’t know anybody named Underwood that is related to me, but I guess it is possible.
Like everybody else, I do have some bona fide Injun blood in me. My grandmother’s grandmother was Commanche. I asked my grandmother about this, when she was alive, and she got real defensive and said, “We didn’t even know her name!” She was embarrassed about the whole idea, but she looked the most Indian of all of us. The story goes, that her long hair caught fire while drawing a fire for a bath. Even this could be a myth that my family has constructed.